I'm not sure it's a holocaust joke.

Heirs and descendants are not synonymous.

EDIT: read the ownership dispute & history[1] at wikipedia - it certainly reads like various inheritors (heirs?) have gone to some lengths to extend the copyright of the original material by making periodic changes. I am not a lawyer, consequently I don't understand how such changes can affect status of original work (as in - how they can apply retrospectively to the original work - and not just affect copyright of those changes).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diary_of_a_Young_Girl#Copy...

Actually, her heirs are the ones milking the system. They own the copyright and could put it in the public domain if they wanted. They've formed a foundation who's job is to monetize her works.

I'm as appalled as the next man by this ridiculous copyright situation, but they could also be trying to ensure that nobody can modify the work in a way that would be disrespectful to the memory of Anne Frank.

That's a real concern, given that there are a lot of Neo-Nazis in the world.

But satire is covered by fair use, right? So I think the neo-Nazis aren't hampered by the copyright.

Yeah, fair point.

I doubt neo-nazis care about the copyright of a book written by "a dirty Jew."

Yeah, but the copyright holder wouldn't necessarily be happy with a commercial enterprise that adapted the work as Neo-Nazi propaganda.

I'm just saying that the motivation around holding copyright might not only be monetary.